'Toxic plume' drifts over Mount Olive in drill

MOUNT OLIVE TWP. - More than 150 public and corporate safety
officials worked together to respond to a hazardous-materials
emergency Friday in Mount Olive.

The only injuries were some responders' pride and the only
damage was to some model buildings: This time, it was a drill.

The exercise, called Business Emergency Simulation Training, or
BEST, was the culmination of more than six months of work that
started when members of the Givaudan Community Advisory Panel (CAP)
began looking for a way that corporate safety officials could
participate in a drill of their emergency procedures that also
included township public safety agencies and nearby businesses.

It was the second time Givaudan CAP undertook a project to
improve community public safety. The CAP is a group of area
businesses and township officials sponsored by Givaudan Fragrances
of Mount Olive.

First Exercise

The resulting BEST exercise represents the first time in New
Jersey that corporate safety officials will work jointly in a drill
with each other and with police, fire and emergency medical
services personnel. But one of the drill organizers, Mount Olive
Office of Emergency Management Director Fred Detoro Jr., said the
drill was long overdue.

"These days, hazardous materials are on our roads and in
industrial areas that are close to retail complexes, schools,
businesses and residential areas," said Detoro, who also is chief
of Flanders Fire Company No. 1 and Rescue Squad. "If something goes
horribly wrong, firefighters and police officers won't be the only
ones responding. And the effects won't stop at the front door of
one company. It'll take a variety of professionals working together
to minimize the effects of this kind of disaster. This will be the
first time all of those people will get to experience working
together."

Real Potential

Authorities said that although Friday's disaster was practice,
all of the circumstances for a real incident exist in Mount Olive.
It is at the junction of three major roads - Interstate 80 and
Routes 206 and 46. A rail line passes through the town. Aircraft
fly over the town. Trucks make up a large portion of the traffic
and a assortment of corporations such as Onyx, BASF, Givaudan, BMW,
Federal Express and UPS create a wide range of risks.

The BEST exercise took place around a room-size map of Mount
Olive. Set up by the Command School, a Lancaster, Pa., company that
specializes in training firefighters, the map had some very
familiar territory on it: the International Trade Zone, the
Goldmine Road industrial area and the town's high school, where the
event took place.

Participants representing their corporations or their public
safety agency acted out the roles they would play in a real
disaster. None had any idea what scenarios they would face, but the
decisions they made created consequences on the map. The
drillmasters used those to drive home various teaching points.
During the exercise, real smoke wafted across the town from
buildings or vehicles.

The drill began as workers at one of the participating companies
accidentally allowed three chemicals to mix, creating a toxic
plume. Company emergency personnel, police, fire and EMS tackled
the incident. Safety personnel at nearby companies and at stores in
an 800,000 square-foot shopping area were told to shelter people in
their buildings.

But soon, all were reminded of an important lesson: You can't
control everything. The wind over this make-believe Mount Olive
picked up and shifted, blowing the plume toward the town's high
school, the International Trade Center area and other populated
area. Evacuations were ordered.

"In real life, more than 5,000 employees would pour out on to
our highways in this situation," said Detoro. "Shoppers at the
retail center would try to leave. And there's always heavy truck
traffic. These roads would back up quickly."

The lessons sunk in quickly. Participants found themselves
caught up in the events and finding ways to work together that they
hadn't imagined a couple of hours earlier.

"We prepare plans and we try to anticipate every scenario, but
you can't think of everything," said Tracy Pepe, Givaudan's
environmental health and safety manager. "We quickly found
ourselves improvising and working with neighboring corporations. We
found we were much more effective at handling events when we worked
together."

For members of the Givaudan Community Advisory Board, the day
was a huge success.

"If a major emergency occurred in this area, it would involve
our volunteer fire departments and rescue squads, our police and
many of our schools and businesses to assure the safety of as many
people as possible," said Michelle Jacobson, Givaudan CAP
facilitator. "Everyone talks about homeland security these days.
Real homeland security is when everyone in the area can work as a
team. Our table-top community drill helped that happen."

Jacobson said added benefits of the CAP's sponsorship of the
BEST drill were a special program for educators on emergency
procedures and a second day of exercises just for public safety
personnel. She said several area corporations had contributed funds
to the project. Major supporters included the International Trade
Center Alliance, Givaudan Fragrances Corp., Unilever Cosmetics
International and the Mount Olive Office of Emergency Management.
Others included BASF Corp., Hackettstown Community Hospital, Saint
Clare's Health Services, Quest International, Rockefeller Group
Development Corp., Sportcraft LTD, Toys "R" Us and the Wyndham
Garden Hotel.

In addition, the town recently received an $8,000 grant from the
New Jersey State Police Office of Emergency Management. Jacobson
said the grant money would allow the CAP to put some of the funds
raised from corporations toward another public safety project for
next year.

"These major events allow the business community and town
agencies to continue learning how to work smoothly with each
other," she said. "Events such as today's BEST drill may save
lives."

Watch this discussion.Stop watching this discussion.

(0) comments

Welcome to the discussion.

Be Yourself. We do not accept and will not approve
anonymous comments. If your username is not your name, please sign
your posts as you would a letter to the editor with your full name
and hometown.Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language.PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated.Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything.Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism
that is degrading to another person.Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts.Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness
accounts, the history behind an article.